


The Price of Ivory

by Turquoise54



Category: Original Work
Genre: Drama, Dystopian, F/M, Multi, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2020-12-28 10:44:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21135437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turquoise54/pseuds/Turquoise54
Summary: || reader-insert ||[ yandere! various x f! reader ]The desperate struggle for the survival of a race threatened by a slow and painful extinction has forced men and women to choose the continuation of their species over the dignity of their kin.Survival does not come without a cost, and the price for a promising future for humanity is the lives of those in the present. But the continuation of the species comes first; all else falls second.You must understand: this is for the greater good. We do this for you—for your children and your children's children. For all of humanity.Trust us; in the end, you will thank us.[ also on Quotev ]





	1. ꜱɪʟᴠᴇʀ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍᴇʀ

**ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴏɴᴇ**  
𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥

**▲**

* * *

**_SUNLIGHT PRESSED AGAINST THE CURTAINS_** of the bedroom window. You’d watched it climb—amused yourself in seeing it try to push its way past the maroon curtains and into the room. It failed. It always did. The curtains were too thick, and the blinds were always closed.

Some days, you wanted to open them—rip them off the window and let the light pour in unobstructed and clear and warm. You wanted to watch the jagged shards of golden sun creep up the bedsheets—to see how the light would fill up the room and dance with the flakes of soft gray dust hanging in the air. But then the world outside would be able to see you; all the eyes that wondered and gossiped could peer up into the bedroom—could see everything that people had once thought they owned.

How foolish they were—how selfish, to think that the flesh of their own body was theirs and theirs alone. The skin of one was the skin of all. Your hands were not yours and could not be called your own, and neither was your tongue the property of your mouth nor your mouth the possession of your mind.

So it was not with your hands that you pulled the body that you didn’t own out of the bed that wasn’t yours, and it wasn’t your feet that padded across the floor of the bedroom that was owned by another to open the thick maroon curtains that covered a window you watched at night to keep the eyes that weren’t your own off of the man that often laid beside you.

He was gone, now—off to work in whatever company it was he owned. You couldn’t remember the name—perhaps it had something to do with technology, or communication, or both—but it mattered little in the span of things; it was his wife’s job to be invested in such matters, not yours.

You took the hands that weren’t yours to possess and held them up to the thick maroon curtains, and the warmth that pressed against them bled into the flesh of your palms. It was a smooth warmth—smooth and creamy and thick, like the bedsheets covering the mattress that wasn’t yours but which you slept upon.

Nothing here was yours—nothing save the flesh and bone you’d carried and delivered. He was yours—yours and his, but only because he’d made it so.

She hadn’t liked that.

You grabbed the curtains, but when your fingers curled around the thick, warm fabric, you faltered. The curtains—they were like skin. Reddish-brown skin, like blood smearing your flesh. You’d fallen—you were cut. But it was so warm—so soft. The skin of a child—a little girl, playing with her sister while her mother cooked and her father watched the news. And the TV was on and there was a reporter on the screen and they were talking about something—something serious and cold.

Grim. Reporters were always so grim. Even when their ties were yellow and cheerful and bright.

With a soft breath, you took the thick curtains and pulled them apart. The warmth that had waited so patiently behind them pressed against the skin of the face and neck that weren’t yours, but the blinds kept the sunlight back—cut it into thin, sickly slivers so sharp and pale they left white gashes in your skin.

You could open them; you could make the slivers thick and fat. You could watch the sunlight creep across the room you didn’t own and look out at the world that claimed possession of everything you couldn’t.

But then the world could peer back.

You stepped away from the window, and the thick, warm curtains fell back against the pink walls. They framed the white blinds, and a soft warmth poured out from the window and into the dim bedroom. But no sunlight followed it, and the sickly white slivers that had managed to force themselves past the blinds sat frozen and pale on the wooden floor like the stagnant, artificial light of a dying bulb.

You could hear it flickering in your ears—listened to its buzz while you dressed yourself in pink and white.

Now the world could see what you were.

So you took gold to your hands and lips, and now the world would know how it should manage itself.

When you were dressed and ready, you left the bedroom and the sickly shards of sunlight carving the floor, and you moved to the boy’s room. _Your _boy—your son.

The only person you could call your own.

The door to his room was open, and when you peered in you could see him, asleep in his bed with the blankets pulled up to his chin. His curtains were closed and the room was dark, but glow-in-the-dark stars had been stuck to the walls and ceiling between posters of rocket ships and faraway planets. And his blankets were decorated in swirling galaxies and brilliant stars—all the wonders of the world just beyond the sky.

You could imagine he was there, up in space, with pale, lime-green stars circling just outside of his cockpit, outlining his round face and golden hair. He was beyond the moon and his pale blue eyes were closed, but if he opened them, he could look down at the colonists—watch them walk from their homes to the helium mines. And he could see the earth—the animals and plants and people. He could watch life grow and wane like waves on the beach, pushing and pulling in and out.

He could be safe up there, floating in the glittering nothingness. Safe from the dying humanity, bound so ruthlessly to the earth and moon.

Asleep in his little rocket ship, far, far away.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” you moved to the window and parted the curtains, and the warmth bled into your cheeks and lips, but the sunlight stayed back. “Time to get up, Artie.”

You heard a groan—a noise of discontent—but then the blankets rustled and the blinds were opened. Not by you—no, you were by the bed, now. An android—he’d gone to the window, and now the light was pouring in, golden and free, gliding across the floor and bedsheets, and the world pressed eagerly against the glass.

He was coming to wake up Artie, but he didn’t need to; you were already here.

You turned your gaze to the window, and there stood the android, watching you with his green, glowing eyes. Eyes like the stars decorating Artie’s room.

They seemed to peer deep inside you, those eyes. Past all the pink and white and gold—through the flesh and bone that had never been yours. His wife had asked him to buy the android. He was an antique—a relic from a time when humanity was so excessive and flippant that it took delight in wasting its resources on manufacturing artificial imitations of itself.

And now it could only dream.

“Goodmorning, Ms. [Name],” the android’s voice was empty and masculine—a faulty, hollow imitation of a human tone, just like his pale skin and dark hair, “and Mr. Arthur.”

You heard Artie yawn, and when you glanced back at him, he was sitting up in his bed. “‘Morning.” He was rubbing at his eyes, and when he spoke, his words were mumbled and low.

“Hey there, sleepyhead.” There was a warmth to your voice, and something soft and happy crawled across your golden lips. You raised your hand and gave his head a soft pat, though you were careful not to let his hair catch on the golden rings decorating your fingers. “Hurry up and get dressed; breakfast’ll be waiting for you in the kitchen.”

Artie nodded, and you moved away, but the warmth lingered in the skin of your palm. “M’kay.”

You started toward the door, and then the android spoke up. His hollow, sharp voice carried surprisingly far, and though he had not moved from his place by the window, when he spoke he sounded as though he stood just behind you. “Mrs. Lafleur is already in the kitchen.”

The android’s body blocked out most of the light streaming in through the window, but your foot settled in a wayward patch, and the warmth that had soaked into the floor bled into your toes.

You didn’t pause, but when you replied, there was a hesitance—a tenseness—to your words. “Then I’ll see if she needs any help.”

Silence met your response, and when you reached the door, you heard Artie say, “Hey, July, have you seen my socks?”

And the android said something in reply, but by that time you were down the hallway and out of the sun.


	2. ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅʟʏ ʜᴀʙɪᴛꜱ

**ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴏ**  
𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦

▲

* * *

**_THE KITCHEN SAT ON THE FIRST FLOOR_,** towards the back of the house and near the stairs. It was usually quiet there in the mornings—deathly quiet, like a lonely vacuum. There you could be alone, for a moment or two. Alone in the body, but never in the mind—never in thought. Eyes peered out from the television and ears strained from behind the walls. For you—they watched for you, to keep you safe and well. Solitude wasn’t healthy. Humans were social beings; loneliness could kill.

And the suffering of one was the suffering of all.

So you were never alone, not with scrambled yolk and egg whites—not when watching the sunlight pour in from the window in the den. There was always presence—always thought, no matter how formless its shape or how quiet its breath.

But now there were sounds—noises, muffled and soft, creeping through the air and across the drywall. Sounds of movement—of life in the abandoned vacuum.

Someone was up; someone was in the kitchen.

Or perhaps the television had been left on.

The flooring shifted to tile as you entered the space: pale yellow and eggshell white squares in a checkerboard pattern. His wife had picked out the colors and design. She’d said yellow was cheerful—that kitchens should be happy and warm; their colors should be bright and yellow, and confident and white. But the hues here were washed out and pale, and the starving overhead lights with their faded bulbs devoured what graying color remained.

Your careful eyes found a shape in the kitchen—the shape the android had already warned you of. A presence—a person, flesh and bone and as real as the body that wasn’t yours. An oddity—she was an oddity. A blue and white stain on the kitchen—on an everyday morning.

Her back was to you, but she was working on something—fiddling with something on the off-white countertop. You could see her arms moving—the sleeves of her nice white blouse, creasing beneath the weight of jostled jewelry, so golden and bright.

She hadn’t heard you; the sound of your footsteps had not yet reached her bejeweled ears. You were but a ghost—a fly on the wall, watching the oddity go about her strange designs. She was dressed in the colors of her breed: blue and white. Calm and purity.

Sadness and sterility.

The colors were pretty on her, even when her eyes were red and her face was pale and her pupils were so wide that they swallowed the pale iris. They were lovely even when she was struggling to stand—when her words were nonsensical and muffled. The colors were always pretty. They told of her shortcomings; they reminded her of your necessity.

For that, the colors could even be beautiful. You would think they were, but that would be wrong, wouldn’t it? Someone told you so once—said that it was cruel to think something beautiful when it led to pain so grim and twisted, to find hideous delight in the darkness of another.

But delight was all you could have. Despair harmed the body, and bodies belonged to their community—to humanity. It was against the law to harm what didn’t belong to you.

“Goodmorning.” The greeting was polite. Politely detached. It fell from your lips like a habit—an urge, impersonal and mannerly.

She jumped at the sound of your voice—started like a thief caught with one leg out the window—and her hands suddenly flew about with startling haste. She swung around to face you, but she kept one arm pinned behind her and held the other to her chest—to the space just above her heart.

“Ah!” The exclamation fell from her wine-red lips in a rush of air. Her pale eyes were wide and fearful and shone like newly minted coins in her sharp face. Her gaze fixed on you—on your face and clothes and then your hands—and slowly the flesh of her face smoothed with a firm recognition. A breath fell from her lips, thin and hiccuped, like a pale attempt at a laugh. “O-oh! You—you scared me.”

The fingers of the hand she held to her breast began to relax—to curl back around the slim remote she’d pressed between her palm and chest—but she kept her right arm—the one whose hand was hidden from your view—pinned behind her. You tried not to notice; it wasn’t your business.

You had none to claim.

“My bad.” There was an indifferent flatness to your voice, but your eyes flitted to the hand she hid behind her body, sandwiched as it was between her hip and the counter, and she noticed.

Her fingers tightened around the slim white remote in her left hand. You watched her knuckles pale—turn an almost ghostly white. “I just—I wanted to see what was on,” she said, brandishing the thin rectangle of plastic like it was a flag—a proof of innocence.

You nodded your head—averted the eyes that weren’t yours—and moved to the stove, and she fumbled with the remote. Her fingers were thin and long—spindly, like the legs of a spider—and a flowery scent clung to her. Roses—artificial roses, from perfume, but no one made perfume anymore.

It was too expensive; it was a waste of time and resources.

Perhaps that was why she liked it so much.

She moved when you did—slid her right hand somewhere before bringing it to her chest to grab the remote from her left. She pressed at one of the buttons, and the television’s dark screen came to life.

The channel had been left on one of the news stations, and a woman, clothed in white and gray, stared out at you from her dark chair. Her hair was fair—blonde—but paler than the bright yellow scarf she’d tied around her slender neck. It seemed almost out of place—the yellow scarf. Its color was too cheerful to match her hard eyes and dark red lips.

“—police are investigating the murder of the two male donors,” the reporter was saying, her tone as dull as the colors of her suit, “but have yet to name any suspects. In other news, a demonstration protesting the law prohibiting fertile guardianship of non-fertile children is scheduled to take place later today at the capitol building.”

You went to grab ingredients from the fridge and pantry, but she remained at the counter, peering out through the kitchen pass at the television. You worked around her—ignored her as if it were any other day, when she wasn’t there at all—and made a note to buy more eggs.

The reporter continued, “With many protests having dissolved into violent riots as of late, law enforcers are wary of—”

“Artie loves chocolate chip pancakes,” she suddenly spoke up. The tremble was gone from her voice—the fear and the poor, breathy attempt at nonchalant laughter. She sounded clearer—clear but quiet, as though she had a thought but knew not how best to speak it. “They’re his favorite.”

Your eyes fled from the frying pan and the eggs that had yet to be scrambled. They fell on her, and you saw that her gaze had moved from the television—had settled on you.

You met her eyes—noticed how they narrowed at you, how the skin around them was colored an irritated red. But her perfume was thick; the air smelled only of fake roses.

“They are,” you replied just as quietly. You looked away from her—let your gaze drop from her eyes and back to the stove. It was impolite to stare too intensely back at her.

She might think you were challenging her.

“His birthday’s this week,” she continued, and you played at the mix of egg yolk and white with the spatula you’d pulled from one of the drawers.

“It is,” you agreed.

Then her hand came to her neck—to the blue kerchief she’d tied there. “Maybe he should have his favorite food. I think he would like that.”

Your fingers curled around the handle of the spatula—wrapped around them like hers had gripped the remote—but you kept your head down, and your voice quiet. “He likes scrambled eggs and bacon, too.”

Though you couldn’t see her face, you heard the frown in her voice when she spoke. “They’re not his favorite.”

Something hot was bubbling in the back of your throat. You pushed at the scrambled eggs—scraped at the pan harder than you needed to. “The school says he needs more protein.” You cleared your throat—tried to swallow the heat. “They sent him home with a note Friday.”

You heard her clothes rustle—felt the air move as she shifted. “Well, I’m sure _one _pancake can’t hurt.” Out of the corner of your eye, you saw her forearms settle on the countertop, and then the scent of her perfume thickened as she moved closer. “He deserves some kind of treat; he’s rarely spoiled. I think it would make him happy.”

There was quiet for a moment. You wanted to say something; you wanted to reply with something smart—something cutting. Something as hot as the bubbling in the back of your throat.

_I wonder how happy he’ll be with a state-sanctioned party._

But then Artie’s face popped into your mind, and something like guilt cooled the heat—tugged at your lips like a frown.

“I’ll see what I can do,” you responded eventually—hesitantly.

She hummed, but not in content. Doubt—it sounded doubtful and disgruntled. “I just think he should have a good birthday week,” she added, but then she moved away, and the sound of the television faded back into the kitchen. A cartoon was on, now; she’d changed the channel.

You nodded like one of those antique bobbleheads—the ones of plastic, then cheap but now as expensive as perfume. You continued to cook, and, despite what the note placed in Artie’s bookbag had requested of you, you made for him one chocolate pancake to go alongside his eggs and bacon.

Just as you finished, Artie popped into the kitchen. He was dressed in his uniform: plaid pants and a white polo, but his hair was still messy, and sand from sleep still clung to the creases of his eyes. He walked loudly despite his socks—dragged his feet across the tiled floor like they were cinder blocks.

“Goodmorning, Artie,” the blue-and-white oddity exclaimed when she saw him. A smile was breaking across her face, and her pale eyes softened to a warm silver when they fell upon Artie.

A look of short surprise flashed across Artie’s face when he heard the woman’s voice, and he spared her a quick glance just as a yawn curled up from his throat. “G’morning, Ms. Anne,” he mumbled in reply. He padded over to the kitchen table, whereupon his breakfast sat, and settled down in the chair reserved there for him and him alone.

A brightness came to his face when his eyes fell upon the chocolate chip pancake sitting on his plate, and the most exuberant of smiles spread without warning across his lips. “Pancakes!?” he gasped. “I _love_ pancakes!”

You watched Anne head over to the kitchen table and slip into the chair nearest Artie. For a second you wanted to stop her—to race her to the chair and take it before she could, like you were a child. But you didn’t; instead, you watched her and Artie from the sink and busied your hands with washing so that your fingers wouldn’t curl.

“I knew you’d like it.” She smiled, and something flickered in your chest. She inclined her head to him—leaned toward him and smiled the smallest, warmest grin. “Did you sleep fine, Artie? Any crazy dreams?”

Artie was bent over his plate, shoveling food into his mouth like eating was going out of style. “Not really.” The reply was horribly muffled, and you moved from your place beside the sink to offer the boy a napkin after drying off your hands.

“Slow down there, sweetheart,” you chastised him. You brought a hand to his head and tried to smooth back his ruffled hair. “No one’s gonna take it from you; you don’t have to inhale it.”

“Sorry.” He slowed his pace and swallowed what food he’d already chewed, and you smiled at him, but when you looked up, you saw that the grin that had been decorating Anne’s face had cooled and soured.

She was staring at you—at your hand—and the look in her eyes was dark and fanged, but then she focused on Artie and suddenly smiled again. “You must’ve been starving, huh?” she commented. She rested her elbow atop the table and then leaned her cheek upon her palm, and something like warm fondness chased away the sourness lingering on her lips. “What did you have for dinner?”

Artie answered her question, but your eyes had fled back to the sink, where unwashed dishes still remained. Perhaps if you ran your hands under the scalding water, the heat would chase away the coldness lingering just under your skin.

But the sink was occupied; the android stood in front of it, freshly cleaned pans and cooking utensils in his hands. He moved so quietly; you hadn’t heard him come down the stairs or step into the kitchen.

He turned his head to you, and when his glowing eyes focused on your hands, your fingers curled themselves into even tighter fists. “May I have the dish towel?” He looked back up at you—into your careful eyes.

“Oh—yes, of course.” You’d forgotten that you’d taken the dish towel with you. It was a small thing: yellow and fluffy, like baby chicks.

It wouldn’t be a problem to hand the towel back to him, but for a moment you hesitated—paused at the thought of moving away from Artie and toward the hollow imitation of humanity standing by the sink. Then the android moved, and he grabbed the dishtowel hanging from your hands.

“Thank you,” he said, but he hadn’t needed to say anything.

You’d given him nothing.

“We depart in fifteen minutes, correct?” he then asked after a pause. He’d finished drying off the dishes, and you watched in silence as he returned them to their rightful places, his movements as quiet as those of a mouse.

You started at the question, and the stillness that had frozen your bones suddenly melted. “W-What?”

His eyes—his unnatural, inhumane eyes—focused once more on your face, and in your head, the sounds of the television and conversation faded to a hum so quiet their language sounded foreign. “You and Mr. Arthur leave the house at seven-thirty in the morning on weekdays, do you not?”

You swallowed, and you heard a popping sound in one of your ears, just before a rush of clear sound invaded it. “We do.”

“Then we leave in fifteen minutes.” His voice was flat and matter-of-fact—hollowly nonchalant—and it crept like a spindly insect up your spine.

“‘We’?” you repeated. You stared at him—at the eyes an engineer thought were human-looking. “Are you—are you coming with us?”

The android blinked even though he had no need to. It was more imitation—more mock humanity. “Those are my instructions, yes. Mr. Lafleur has directed me to act in a manner that will best maintain yours and Mr. Arthur’s well-being,” he hung the dishtowel back upon its rack but didn't break eye-contact while doing so, “and it has come to my knowledge that donors and children may no longer walk the streets without adequate supervision if they value their safety.”

The kitchen pulsed an aggressive yellow. You could hear the hum of the reporter’s voice, flat and ambivalent, bleeding into your head.

“Yes, I—I've…heard,” you replied quietly.

And the yellow colors hummed in agreement.


	3. ꜱᴀᴄᴄʜᴀʀɪɴᴇ ʜᴏɴᴇꜱᴛʏ

**ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ**  
𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯'𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘴

**▲**

* * *

**_THE WALK TO THE BUS STOP WAS NOT A ROUTE TORTUOUS NOR LONG_. **Often, it felt short—abrupt, like a thought broken at the middle, aborted just before the finish. It left you wanting, selfishly lusting for a lengthening of the short trip from house to bus stop—a lengthening of time shared between two and two alone.

Now, however, the rows of cookie-cutter houses lining the stretch of splitting cement that led down to the bus stop spanned onward without end. Now you had time in abundance. A strange, diseased time, infected by a watchful, choking silence and its strange-eyed host: an android alone to thank—to blame—for the adulteration of that which was once good and sacred.

You watched him, kept him in the corner of your eye like he was a criminal, a suspect for a crime you couldn’t name. He walked behind you and off to the side, at the heels of the space between you and Artie. He lingered like a shadow, a bad thought, persistent and growing, clouding the mind and corrupting the body.

Contaminating the soul.

You held on to Artie’s hand as you always did, clutched it as though some stranger, some nameless figure wandering the street, might move to take him from you, and perhaps one would. You’d heard whispers. You’d seen glimpses: a child, lagging behind the pack, carried off by a shape without a face, and an infant, plucked from a basket when a man’s back was turned. 

If ever reclaimed, the young were seldom returned. The abductors had made apparent the callous negligence of the guardians, and the future of humanity could not be entrusted to men and women who couldn’t be prompted to fight for it.

Your eyes shifted from the corner where the android lingered, a shadowy aberration staining your routine, and moved to the approaching curb, the rounded end to your long journey. There a sign hung, bolted to a pole topped by a flashing camera, and beside it stood two men—police officers—clad in harsh black. Their helmets were glossy and smooth, like the shell of a beetle, but their cruel visors were not pulled down, and when the one nearest you turned, you could see his eyes brighten with recognition’s familiar light.

The shape of his face was not soft, but there was a roundness to his cheeks, an invitation, lying in the pupils of his eyes. “Hey! How are ya?” He smiled at you and Artie as you approached, offered the polite grin to which you’d become so accustomed, but then his gaze caught on the android, snared itself upon the convincing face and tell-tale dress, and an odd strangeness upset his courteous grin.

Artie did not wait to answer the man. “G’morning, Mr. Sean,” he chirped eagerly, his eyes bright with a star-like effervescence. Then his gaze shifted to the second policeman, and he added, “And Mr. John. I’m doing really good; I had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.”

A short, bubbling chuckle fell from the officer’s lips, and he tore his inviting eyes from the android’s face and turned them upon the boy. “Chocolate chip?” he echoed, his tone playfully incredulous. “Well that is a treat, ain’t it?”

As the man and your son chatted, you and the android settled in the space between the two policemen. You kept a firm grip upon Artie’s hand despite the safety the officers’ imposing uniforms promised, and you saw the second policeman glance your way, turn his head but a millimeter to cast judgment from the corner of his eye. 

“Ma’am,” you heard the second officer say. His voice was quiet but clear, and you didn’t miss the nod he gave you, the acknowledgment that yes, you did indeed exist separate the boy whose hand you clutched. He’d always been the less talkative half of the morning watch, but in lieu of conversation, he’d never forgotten to offer some other form of recognition.

You didn’t turn your head to look at him; in public, it was safer not to look any man nor woman in the eye, straight-on, without the safety of a sideways glance. Instead, you stared down at the ground, the street that had once been buckling, torn and sunken road, ruined concrete edges jutting out like broken teeth into the air. Now the street was smooth and pale—new concrete, poured after the old had been gutted and carted off—and the tires lucky enough to roll down it did so carefully.

Well-kept roads were a luxury, an antique worthy of preservation.

You returned the officer’s nod but did not move to speak to him. Artie and the first policeman’s chatter was conversation enough for your listening ears, and you waited with bated breath and hesitant heart, as you always did, for the end to arrive.

“Yesterday we learned all about elephants,” you heard Artie chirp, his voice light with enthusiasm, freed of the confines of fatigue, like a bird escaping from its cage, “it was pretty cool. They were really big. As big as a bus!”

“_Really_?” the officer replied, and you could hear the smile in his voice, the amusement and how it colored his tone.

“Yeah, and they had these _huge_ tusks sticking out of their faces,” Artie continued brightly, “And their noses were really super long, like an arm.”

Then the end came, and Artie’s voice faded from your ears. You watched the end roll down the street: it came in the form of a bus, armored and flat white in color, with short, black windows punched into its sides at purposeful intervals. It stopped in front of where you stood, its fat tires hugging the rounded curb, and over you it towered, leering and ominous, like some ancient beast—a memory coming to collect its dues.

Two girls were once its fee, but now its charge had changed; now it demanded a boy.

_Give it a girl, and it will return a mother. Hand it a boy, and it will make him a father._

After a brief pause, the door was opened, and from within the chatter of children spilled, contained and moderated by the four uniformed figures inside. The one nearest the door, a woman in dark blue, already had her eyes set upon you and Artie, and once the door was opened she nodded her head and quickly motioned to you.

“Bring him up.” Her voice was hard and firm, stony and harsh, like the shape of her dark eyes, and her tone was commanding and spiked, a whip with hooked tips.

You heard the officer Artie chatted with offer your son a friendly, “Stay outta trouble,” before you glanced down and gave his arm a light tug.

“I’ll see you later, sweetheart,” you murmured softly. You squeezed his hand for reassurance, but whom you meant to comfort you knew not. You guided him to the towering beast, and then, after he had embarked upon its steps, you allowed your grip upon his hand to loosen.

Routine had eased the old pain, the old fear. Once, the gaping hole into which he disappeared had been a mouth, and memories sharp and vindictive had torn at your chest, ripping into it with teeth made of razors, but now the doorway did not attempt to contort itself into anything more than simply that, and the graying remains of your thoughts did not stir from their long rest.

Still, a final affirmation slipped past your lips, a lingering symptom of fear too complicated to be efficiently cured. “Stay safe.”

You stepped back and watched the door fall shut, and then, a few moments later, the bus in its flat white armor pulled away, lumbering off to collect others’ dues—always hungry for the next payment, the next addition to its growing collection. You watched it disappear; no matter how many times you saw it depart, you could never find the strength to move again until it was gone, until the warm memory of Artie’s hand had faded from your palm, and the blood roaring in your ears had softened to a silent cry.

But this time a voice called out to you: the android, tearing through the noise in your head, ripping away the warmth lingering in your hand. “Ms. [Name]?” he called, his tone as hollow as a cavity. He said your name as though it were a question, as though you were some enigma, some inquiry to which he desired an answer.

_[Name]? Are you crying?_

Something hot and sharp shot suddenly through your veins, grabbing at your limbs and heart like an impatient child, and you whipped around to face the android, but in your haste, your eyes snagged briefly on those of the two officers’. They watched you; they stared at you as though you were some odd attraction, some curious thing peering out at them from behind metal bars.

A freak. An oddity.

A mystery to be unraveled.

But there lay something in the quieter man’s eyes, something more somber than awe, more restrained than gaudy befuddlement—kinder than pity. It filled his gaze and burned like fire in his pupils, bristling and wild, but contained, bound to the windows to the world inside his head.

A look, it was but a look, a glance, but a taste was dangerous.

A taste was to be feared.

A taste was to be _hated_.

Immediately, you tore your gaze free of the man’s and turned it upon the android. Your heart had leaped up into your throat, as though it wished to choke you, and now it lingered uncomfortably in your windpipe—a large, flesh-colored lump at the back of your mouth.

You forced your head to nod and your feet to move, and the android followed dutifully after you, its steps as silent as the grave. You could feel his strange eyes on your face, watching you, waiting. Or perhaps the glare that burned your head was not an android’s but a man’s—a creature of flesh and blood, born and not manufactured. A body warm and fraught with bright, sun-like energy, not a cold and unfeeling imitation cursed to always fall short of perfect mimicry.

“You have a check-up scheduled for later this evening, correct?” The android’s clinical voice cooled the heat rising in your chest, softened the lump in your throat until you could swallow your heart without complaint.

“Yes,” you replied, your voice a murmur, a thought, already fading into the unfeeling cold, “I do.”


	4. ᴄᴏʟᴅ ᴀᴘᴏʟᴏɢɪᴇꜱ

**ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰᴏᴜʀ**  
𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘯 𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘴

**▲**

* * *

**_SOMETHING WAS DRIPPING_**—water or some other stranger liquid. You could hear it popping and plopping and splattering, soaking into fabric and wood, scattering across stone and tile. The sound fell from some space above your head, behind the ceiling tiles and old LED lights that echoed the light of day. Or perhaps it came instead from somewhere behind you, past the pastel yellow-green walls and paintings too ugly to be stolen but pretty enough not to burn, beyond the strokes and swirls of a blue, acrylic house set against a red and orange sky.

One drop every breath, one tear escaping the broken mouth of a useless sink and falling and splattering upon the unforgiving tile below. Two more fell, two more breaths raised your shoulders, and then the nurse removed the velcro sleeve from your arm. It tore like it was breaking, like it was a scream, a glass shattering, and the crash swallowed the steady drip that had been bleeding into the room.

Silence followed the clap of sound, and in so still a pause the nurse’s quiet voice was as sudden as the rip of velcro that had preceded it.

“When was your last cycle?” the nurse asked. Her voice was strange, warm and yet distant—familiar but restrained. She kept her eyes fixed to the monitor, to the boxes brimming with numbers and words and symbols you didn’t understand.

“Last Friday,” you replied quietly. Your eyes fled to the ugly painting fixed to the far wall—the only fixture as constant as the architecture. Every appointment, the nurse sat you here, in this room. The room with yellow-green walls kept as bare as the day they were made, where the chair reserved for patients wobbled and shook because one of its legs didn't stand as tall as the others. “It ended last Friday.”

The nurse typed your response into the strange boxes, and the click of the keys echoed strangely in the quiet room. Sound alone was odd, here. Perhaps it was because of the barren walls, or the smell of cleaning products—the scent of alcohol and bleach, trying in vain to scrub away the memories of a bygone world.

“Alright.” She clicked on something, and then her eyes moved away from the computer monitor to meet your own. A shape similar to a smile curled her lips, but the curve was as carefully light as her tone, and its deliberate corners hardly grazed the bottoms of her eyes. “Dr. Peters will be with you shortly.”

You swallowed, but your mouth was dry—empty like the space behind your ribs. “Okay.”

The nurse stood, and you heard her cross the room—listened to the soft shuffle of feet and rustle of fabric—but your eyes didn’t move to follow her. They rose instead to the wall across from you, to the ugly painting: the gaudy blue house and loud dusk sky.

The lawn the house sat upon was a dark shade of wine purple, like a stained shag carpet, and three of the four windows had been painted a blue so dark it looked nearly black. They were like gaping holes: sharp rectangular voids—gaps of dark space cut into the canvas. All save the fourth—the window that sat on the upper right chamber of the house. There, instead of a night-colored blue, the painter had used a bright and gaudy shade of yellow. The color was that of sulfur, of diseased fat, grinning against the dark canvas—smiling in the cavities of a rotting house.

Suddenly, you heard someone knock on the door to the room. The sound was abrupt and hard—an angry bang in a stillness still settling—and you tore your eyes away from the ugly painting, ripped them free of the gaudy house and its smiling window.

“Hello!” The door opened, and in walked the man who’d knocked: the doctor, dressed in green and white and bearing a grin as bright and yellow as a newscaster’s tie. It was a cheerful smile, a smile much happier than the polite grin the nurse had managed, but it fit somehow upon his long, dark face. 

Dr. Peters walked with a lightness to his step, a bounce that could take him flying up into the ceiling if he wasn’t careful, and he sat down in the chair the nurse had used with a flourish that sent his sterile white coat fluttering. “How’re we doing today?”

The man’s voice was loud when he spoke. Loud and bright, like his eyes: all blue and twinkling, narrowed only by the press of his smile. They were like two skies. Two shimmering, endless wastelands of space. No-man’s land. Paintings in need of contrast.

If you looked hard enough, would you see a moon? A sun? Or perhaps a flock of birds headed south for the winter, searching for shelter while their home withered and decayed. Anything to fill such a pale-colored void.

“Just fine.” Your voice was quiet: a pale whisper in comparison to Dr. Peters’ loud tenor. Yet no greater sound rose to your lips; your chest was too tight, and your windpipe too small.

Dr. Peters nodded his head, but his bright, empty-sky eyes had shifted away from you. They rested now upon the same monitor the nurse had once scrutinized, and the sharp and hollow click of the computer keys filled the air.

“Wonderful. Wonderful.” Dr. Peters’ smile didn’t drift or falter, and the brightness of his grin was startling—blinding. His expression was that of sunlight, shimmering and light, and yet distant. A warmth too remote to comfort your cold skin—too hollow to fill your chest. “Just a quick check-up today I see.”

He clicked on something and then, after reading the window that had popped up onto the monitor, abruptly turned to face you. The sudden intensity of his bright gaze had you squinting, straining to keep your eyes set upon his face.

“So, how’ve you been?” He spoke lightly, conversationally, and when he stood up from his chair, he moved with a confident fluidity. When he made his way to the examination table, you rose to follow him, and though your legs shook when you stood, your feet moved in spite of their wobbling. “Keeping to your diet?”

You placed your hands upon the seat, felt for a moment the uncomfortable waterproof fabric, and then lighted upon it. It was sticky. It was always sticky, no matter how furiously the cleaners scrubbed. They always fell short; they could never quite erase the memory lingering in the cushions.

“Yes.” Your hands began to shake, and so you brought them together in your lap, held them tightly, as though firmness might quiet their trembling.

“That’s good.” He readied his stethoscope, and the air in your lungs went suddenly still. The chill of the diaphragm was sharp and poignant against your skin, like a knife buried in your chest.

A surgical blade, slicing you open, stealing what was not its to take.

Yet it didn’t belong to you, either.

“Could you take a deep breath for me? Nice and slow.”

Your lungs shuddered, and a gasp as cold as ice forced its way down your throat. His hand was on your back; the warmth of his palm bled into the curve of your spine, molten and slow like lava along the outline of your vertebrae. Yet the bones he touched were not really yours, and the terrible heat that burned your spine could not reach the cold of his stethoscope.

“And exhale.”

The air that fell from your lips was cold and hard, and it settled like glass in the air. Pretty and shiny, but unfriendly. Standoffish. Cruel.

“Alright.” He moved the chest piece, and when he placed the diaphragm down again, its chill was not quite so biting. It had devoured enough of your warmth, what more could it want? “And again, please.”

The air in the room did not belong in your lungs, but again you inhaled. The taste of cleaning products burned your nose, and the warmth of the doctor’s hand pressed uncomfortably at your stomach. Something was waking, there. Something as yellow as bile was shifting in your intestines, churning in the pit of your stomach.

“Good, good.” He removed the stethoscope, but its chill remained in your chest. It was a cold so frigid it burned, and when you breathed, the air in your lungs crystallized. “Your lungs sound fine, but your heartbeat was a bit fast.” Dr. Peters stared at you, scrutinized you with his pale, hollow eyes. “Something troubling you?”

Your stomach turned, and a foul, bitter taste filled your mouth.

“No.”

Dr. Peters’ eyes didn’t leave your face, and when he spoke, you could hear doubt in his voice: scrutiny, lying just beneath his questioning tone—tugging at the corners of his lips. “No?”

Your fingers curled into the shapes of fists, and into the flesh of your palms your fingernails dug, sharp and painful. Tell him. Turn on the lights in all those dark, empty rooms. Light the painting and its ugly house on fire. Let it and its empty smile burn sulfur yellow, as ugly and rot-colored as the house it devours.

It should’ve been burned with the rest of them. It should’ve turned to ash years ago.

“I’m fine.” Slowly, with painstaking care, you unfurled your fingers from their fists, and when your hands were open, you placed your palms carefully down upon your thighs. “There’s just…a lot I need to do today.”

Your stomach churned, and the bitter taste in your mouth bit down hard on your tongue, but the intensity of Dr. Peters’ stare waned, and his bright smile pressed again at his eyes. It was a hollow grin, a flash of meaningless color on a pale, empty canvas.

“Then I’ll try not to keep you too long.”

▲

The android met you in the waiting room. He stood by the far wall, his careful eyes fixed on some point on the room’s ceiling, and his hands folded in front of him, but when you entered the room his gaze fled quickly to you, and his arms moved to his sides.

“Ms. [Name].” He moved to hold the door to the clinic open for you, his unnatural eyes set unblinkingly upon your face. “How was your appointment?”

The inquiry fell flatly from the android’s lips. His voice was hollow and empty, like his bright eyes. It lacked warmth: the emotion that made speech natural and organic. The inquiry was a prompt, and your answer was but a number, another digit to add to its files.

You were a statistic. An empty piece of data as cold as the stethoscope hanging around Dr. Peters’ neck. A body to be counted. A variable in someone else’s experiment; you were made for manipulation, for analysis and examination.

“Fine.” The churning in your stomach had not ceased, and when you held your breath, the pressure crushing your intestines lifted for a moment too short to be appreciated. “It was fine.”

The android did not press you. He did not read past your tone, or scrutinize your expression. He merely nodded his head—took your data and devoured it with clinical ease.

The hallway was not empty, but you did not lift your head to eye the persons you passed. You kept your gaze respectfully lowered, and if it did rise it moved only to regard the walls of painted plaster, upon which signs and posters had been tacked. They were replacements, substitutes for the paintings and photos vandals and thieves had snagged back in the days of panic and confusion and fear. They advertised healthy diets and optimistic attitudes—journeys back to the roots of human society. Human connection. Human solidarity.

_We are one people, one cause and commitment. We cannot succeed on our own. There is no you. There should be no I. Individualism kills. Wants and desires kill. Necessity is what enables survival, and our species must survive._

“What time is it?” you asked suddenly. The question had leaped eagerly to the tip of your tongue, pushed itself quite bravely past the yellow bitterness clotting your throat.

“The time is currently fifteen hours and sixteen minutes,” the android replied. “Mr. Arthur will be arriving at the bus stop in fifteen minutes.” His eyes fled to your own, and he added, “Would you like me to calculate an optimal route?”

Confusion seeped into your mind, and your intestines began to pull themselves into uncomfortable knots. Bile, sulfur-colored and sour, rose in your throat, and when you spoke, you nearly choked on it. “I know how to get there.”

The android didn’t blink, and he replied, “That was not the question.” His voice was flat, and when he continued, he repeated, with identical tone and inflection, “Would you like me to calculate an optimal route?”

You swallowed, and the confusion clotting your mind prodded uncomfortably at your chest and stomach. Something inside you was rising. It was a fear, a terror red-colored and hot.

You knew the path to the bus stop. You knew how much time it took to get there from the hospital. It was a path you took quite often. Alone. Safe in your own company; confident in that which you, and you _alone_, could accomplish.

It was _yours_.

“No.” The word felt harsh to your ears but fell quickly from your mouth: a bullet the size of a needle, thin and pointed, flying like spit from your tongue. “No. I’ll be fine.”

This time, the android did blink. His eyelids fluttered open and close, and you could see the gears behind his green eyes turning, all that fanciful engineering whirring and clicking as he processed your response.

Then, after a pause, he replied, “Understood.”

He turned his head away from you, and his bright eyes moved to focus on the path ahead, but your own could not move from his face. His expression was so blank, so _empty_, and yet rich with malevolence. An evil and cold indifference.

Silence colored the rest of your walk, and you made no move to erase it. The quiet was a more tolerable companion. It did not scrutinize or examine, and neither did it try to take that which did not belong to it.

You exited the hospital and turned down broken concrete sidewalks and buckling streets. Asphalt had been poured into the maws of the worst potholes, but their starving bellies were still far from satisfied. You could hear their stomachs growling, snarling beneath the chatter of strangers.

Yet the rumbling of their hungry stomachs faded the closer you drew to the bus stop, and the growl of the metal monster drowned out what sound lingered. The beast slunk reluctantly down the road, its giant head bowed and its fat tires dragging along the ground. The shine of its dark windows was now dull and lackluster: an echo of the gleam that had once sharpened the glass.

The monster came to a slow and almost hesitant stop, and you felt something in your chest jump at the squeal of its brakes. There was a roar in your ears, a yelling so loud that it hummed in the marrow of your bones, but when the door opened, the noise stopped. The silence was abrupt and harsh, but you didn’t need your ears.

Your eyes were all that mattered.

Artie hopped down from the bus, and immediately you embraced him, hugged him despite all the eyes that watched. Your hand found his, and you held tightly to it, for who knew what malevolent creature might try to scoop him up now that he had been released from the monster’s armored grasp.

He was back. They’d brought him back.

They hadn’t a need to keep him.

_Yet._

“How was school, sweetheart?” Your gaze moved to his face, to his pale blue eyes, so bright—so full of life. They brimmed with suns and moons and stars—all the light in the universe, all the richly colored warmth you could ever need or want.

It was still yours.

Artie held something up with his free hand, and a proud, bright smile rose to his lips. “We did arts and crafts today!” The object in his grasp was a piece of green construction paper, and as he brandished it, you caught sight of the squat, five-legged beast that had been scribbled onto it. “Look! I drew an elephant, see?”

Something soft and light tugged at the line of your mouth and pressed at the bottoms of your eyes. “I see!” Your stomach had settled, and the sulfur-yellow bitterness biting your tongue began to fade. “It looks wonderful, Artie. We’ll have to put it up somewhere when we get home.”

Artie’s grin widened at your response, and he began walking, eager to put his magnificent work on display. “Can we put it on the fridge?”

The chill invading your lungs began to warm, and you didn’t hesitate to reply. “Of course we can, sweetheart.”

He was still yours.


End file.
